When scientists talk about the cryosphere, they mean the places on Earth where water is in its solid form, frozen into ice or snow. Read more ...

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Adopt a Glacier

Why Adopt a Glacier?

Glaciers are rapidly shrinking around the world in response to a warming Earth. Many of them will disappear in the coming decades, after having persisted for thousands of years.

Adopting a glacier is a great way to support glacier research. Your donation goes to the Roger G. Barry Archives and Resource Center (ARC) to preserve some of the artifacts that show how these glaciers have changed over the last century, including historic glacier photographs, field notebooks, and maps going back to the 1800s.Of course, your adoption is only symbolic, but you can learn about your glacier and watch it change.

All donations will go directly towards preserving these unique collections for future researchers. We may not be able to save your glacier, but with your help we can know more about how and why glaciers are changing.

What You Receive for Your Donation

We will e-mail you the following materials (within 5-7 business days):

Adoption Certificate

Glacier Fact Sheet

Historical Photo

You will also be emailed the next annual ARC newsletter where your name will be listed as a supporter of ARC.

Glaciers Available for Adoption

Arapaho Glacier, photographed in August 1898 by R.Y. Brackett and in August 2004 by J.W. Van de Grift. Click for expanded image.

Located above Boulder, CO, USA at a latitude of 40.02° North and a longitude of 105.65° West, Arapaho glacier is a typical alpine glacier with an elevation of 12,434 feet (3,790 meters).

In 1962, Henry A. Waldrop published "Arapaho Glacier, Boulder County, Colorado." In it, he notes that Arapaho glacier has receded 300 to 900 feet since its maximum around 1860. This equates to losing 29 acres (32%) of its area.

Franz Josef Glacier is located in the Southern Alps on the south island of New Zealand at a latitude of 43.47° South and a longitude of 170.19° East.

Until recently, Franz Josef Glacier had been spared the fate of retreat that most of its neighboring glaciers in the Southern Alps have been experiencing for the past 30 years. It is classified as an alpine and valley glacier.

Qori Kalis, photgraphed by L.G. Thompson in July 1978 and July 2004. Click for larger image.

Qori Kalis Glacier is a valley glacier that is an outlet for the Quelccaya Ice Cap in tropical Andes mountains of Peru. It sits at an altitude of 5100 m at a lattitude of 13.91° S and a longitude of 70.83° W.

Since 1975, when measurements of the glacier began, Qori Kalis has retreated by almost 50% and a large lake has formed where the bottom of the glacier used to be.